First impressions: Windows Vista

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:06 pm

Ok, here are some initial impressions on Microsoft's latest Windows:

Pros
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1. Bootup is very fast compared to XP.

2. Nice look and feel—reminds me very much of the latest versions of SuSE. Was surprised that the 3D effects don’t seem to drag the system down at all.

3. System will automatically detect previous Windows XP install and set up a dual boot for you if you choose a clean install rather than an upgrade. (I never…never…upgrade Windows on top of Windows. You get nasty problems that way.)

4. Installed Halo as a test game, game play is every bit as smooth as XP.

5. I like being able to add RAM via a USB2 pen drive…cool idea. Unfortunately, I have 2 pen drives, and Vista doesn’t like either one of them for this. Still, cool idea, if anyone can actually make it work. (I can see it now: “Windows Vista Compliant” pen drives that cost more than DDR3 RAM modules.)

6. Office 2007 loads VERY fast in Vista. Unusually fast, even. Strangely fast. Suspiciously fast. (But see number 8 under “Cons,” below.)

Cons
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1. Install was dicey to get going. First four attempts got “Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.” On fifth attempt, it installed. Go figure.

2. Keeps trying to install Media Player 11 at odd intervals, and won’t allow you to select only certain media types…the screen is there but the options are greyed out. Lovely! If I could find the .CAB files for this DRM-laden nightmare, I’d love to just chuck it off the system…but I bet they won’t let you do that.

3. That seems to be a common phrase I keep muttering as I wend my way around in Vista: “They won’t let you do that.”

4. Which brings me to the next point. Anybody who ever used to criticize Macs for “the Mac way or the highway” won’t like Vista much either. Not an OS that lets you under the hood.

5. Apparently doesn’t support EAX audio at all?!? What's up with that?!?!?!? BOO HISS BOO!!!

6. Doesn’t detect my old Microsoft “Office” keyboard…the scroll wheel on the keyboard doesn’t work. Also doesn’t detect my Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro joystick. Microsoft won’t support its own stuff…go figure.

7. I thought the days of loading drivers from floppy / CD during Windows installs were supposed to be over. Had to do this for my SATA controller. Oh well.

8. For some reason it takes Outlook 2007 about three times as long to check mail under Vista as it does under XP. Identical settings, identical hardware. Go figure.

Conclusions
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Well, I did try to be fair. I had several “pros” as well.

I’ve always criticized Windows for its abysmally slow boot times. Vista seems actually address this—it’s quite nice to see Windows come up about as fast as Linux on the same hardware.

(I can see the Microsoft memo in my head: “Ok, guys, it’s time to finally get rid of all the delay loops in the startup code.”)

I do like the eye-candy. And even though I’m only running 1 gig of RAM, the system is quite snappy. To be fair though, though, the only game I’ve installed is Halo, and I don’t think it’s all that RAM-intensive. I’m suspecting if I load Quake 4 it’ll be quite a bit slower than XP due to its being so memory-hungry.

So far I like the system but find I don’t trust it yet.

Time will tell.

And, lest anybody ask, yes, it's a legal evaluation copy, as I'm a member of Technet. (Don't want to get a reputation for being all piratical or anything)

--James

djm · Post by **djm** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:22 pm

I took a look at some of the lists out there that talk about the many things that Vista won't run on or work with. There is nothing in Vista I can see to make it worth an entire hardware and software upgrade of my systems, so I will wait until at least ServicePack 1 before even considering Vista again.

djm

crookedtune · Post by **crookedtune** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:29 pm

I like the look of the OneNote digital notebook application that's now part of Office. We're rolling it out to about 30 folks here in my holding area.

jsluder · Post by **jsluder** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:32 pm

djm wrote:I took a look at some of the lists out there that talk about the many things that Vista won't run on or work with. There is nothing in Vista I can see to make it worth an entire hardware and software upgrade of my systems, so I will wait until at least ServicePack 1 before even considering Vista again.

How unpatriotic of you. You Canadians don't know how lucky you are to be a part of the wonderful US of A. Now, be a good little American and go buy "Made in the USA" (especially Microsoft) stuff.

Caj · Post by **Caj** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:52 pm

4. Which brings me to the next point. Anybody who ever used to criticize Macs for “the Mac way or the highway” won’t like Vista much either. Not an OS that lets you under the hood.

In my opinion the Mac and Windows have completely switched roles in the last decade.

Windows has become extremely easy for ordinary people to use, in my opinion more so than the Mac (I use both.) For example, when I plug a USB drive into XP I get a pop-up menu suggesting every normal thing I might want to do with it---on the Mac, it just automounts as a volume on the Desktop. XP is very in-your-face about helping you; MacOS is more generic and hands-off in its behavior.

Meanwhile, the MacOS was rewritten to be Unix underneath. So I get a terminal with a bash shell, GNU tools, apache and php pre-installed, and a whole developer suite for free right there on the install CD.

This lets you tinker with things. For example, if you ever wanted to get music off an iPod, but iTunes won't let you do that? It's okay, because you can do that in a few Unix commands.

So basically MacOS has become a power-user OS that you can tinker with under the hood. If you want to start writing application software or serve a web site with cgi, a Mac does that out of the box. Meanwhile, I'd rather use Windows to load photos off a digital camera because I find it a lot more convenient.

Caj

Post by **Dale** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 4:04 pm

You know, it's interesting walking around with this MacBook and having to decide everytime I turn it on what to boot into: Win Xp or Mac. I had no prior experience with Mac until I got this machine a few weeks ago. I find myself frequently booting in to Mac precisely because it boots so much faster than XP. I don't have Office for the Mac side. Increasingly, I boot up on the Windows side only because I have software on that side I don't have for the Mac.

I'm trying to use NeoOffice on the Mac side (a Mac-ified version of OpenOffice) but I just can't adjust to it after using Office for eons.

I'm still not use to the Mac approach and it'll be interesting to see how I grow into it, or not.

rhulsey · Post by **rhulsey** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 4:50 pm

Hang in there, Dale - you'll get used to the Mac. I've used Macs since my first on in '88, an SE, with the luxurious and most expensive 40MB hard drive! We knew we'd never fill that up, not no way, not no how!

TelegramSam · Post by **TelegramSam** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 5:22 pm

I refuse to ever buy anything with Vista installed on it, I don't care how many bells and whistles they put in the program.

Bottom line - it's a data miner. It collects data on how you use your computer and sends it back to microsoft, probably to be sold to advertisers or some other nefarious purpose. It's in the EULA so it's perfectly legal, but it's just way too Big Brother for me. I won't touch the stupid thing with a 10-foot pole. My next computer will either be a mac or have Ubuntu Linux (a very nice user-friendly, easy-install version of Linux that my brother uses.)

Windows is too much of a resource-hog anyway and everything Microsoft puts out is buggy as hell. I mean, people are having to reflash those stupid X-BOXES and video game consoles are SUPPOSED to be stand-alone finished products when you buy them, not half-finished buggy pieces of garbage. But then, Microsoft has always put out half-finished products and left it to the consumer to troubleshoot it for them.

Tyler · Post by **Tyler** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 7:20 am

TelegramSam wrote:I refuse to ever buy anything with Vista installed on it, I don't care how many bells and whistles they put in the program.

Bottom line - it's a data miner. It collects data on how you use your computer and sends it back to microsoft, probably to be sold to advertisers or some other nefarious purpose. It's in the EULA so it's perfectly legal, but it's just way too Big Brother for me. I won't touch the stupid thing with a 10-foot pole. My next computer will either be a mac or have Ubuntu Linux (a very nice user-friendly, easy-install version of Linux that my brother uses.)

Windows is too much of a resource-hog anyway and everything Microsoft puts out is buggy as hell. I mean, people are having to reflash those stupid X-BOXES and video game consoles are SUPPOSED to be stand-alone finished products when you buy them, not half-finished buggy pieces of garbage. But then, Microsoft has always put out half-finished products and left it to the consumer to troubleshoot it for them.

I'm in total agreement with you there sam.
I've had too many bad experiences with Microhard products of late (don't even get me started about trying to get updates on my older desktop and having Weirdows Outdate tell me my product code is invalid...bah, and a whole lotta help their customer service is too), and some of the horror stories I've been hearing about the Vista beta test are enought to put me off buying anything utilizing it.
My next computer is more than likely going to be a MacBook Pro, so that if, heaven forbid, I HAVE to use Weirdows, er, i mean Windows, for something I can still use it...but only if I HAVE to.

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 8:58 am

I think I can get an upgrade for my recently purchased laptop, but I'm
curious about the "dual boot" thing you mention, James. Does it repartition,
or do XP and Vista both exist on C:?

If I wipe the partition entirely, would I still be able to use the Upgrade (since
it won't find XP on the HD anymore)?

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 9:00 am

fearfaoin wrote:I think I can get an upgrade for my recently purchased laptop, but I'm
curious about the "dual boot" thing you mention, James. Does it repartition,
or do XP and Vista both exist on C:?

If I wipe the partition entirely, would I still be able to use the Upgrade (since
it won't find XP on the HD anymore)?

It doesn't repartition on its own; however, using a utility like Partition Magic, you can divide your drive into two partitions, and then install Vista on the other partition.

If you have a laptop with only one drive, that's the way I'd do it.

On the upgrade question, I am not sure but I think the upgrade version requires that it find a valid XP install, so you may not have this option.

I'll see if I can find the details on this--I'll post what I find on this thread.

--James

ShadowBG625 · Post by **ShadowBG625** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 6:16 am

I saw a demo article in PC Gamer for Vista, and in it they had some screenshots. Cosmetically, it looks nice. It had a background picture of a lake, with cliffs in the background. Is that Vista's default picture? Anyone know where I might find that picture?

Brian Lee · Post by **Brian Lee** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 8:17 am

ShadowBG625 wrote:I saw a demo article in PC Gamer for Vista, and in it they had some screenshots. Cosmetically, it looks nice. It had a background picture of a lake, with cliffs in the background. Is that Vista's default picture? Anyone know where I might find that picture?

This picture?

http://www.utaks.net/5270/5270_desktop.jpg

ShadowBG625 · Post by **ShadowBG625** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 12:20 pm

Yep, that's the pic. I'm going to try to clean it up. That's a very good background pic IMO.

Verdilene · Post by **Verdilene** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:28 pm

Thanks for the review!

I have been reading about this OS for awhile and I'm still hesitant on upgrading. I think I'll wait a bit before switching

Oh by the way, I'm new here

Just recently got a Freeman Tweaked Mellowdog D from eBay and its pretty good.

Glad to meet you all!